Pumpkins, Halloween, turkeys, and Marlborough Pudding

In preparation for Halloween we carved a pumpkin.  Bennett had absolutely no squeamishness about sticking his hand in to remove the pumpkin guts.

And here's the final pumpkin. Despite what you might think, that's not a raised eyebrow.  That's an eye and what's under it is a nose.

On Halloween we went to Nana's.  After dinner Bennett got into his costume and helped pass out a couple of pieced of candy before we went out.

Most people didn't know what he was (numerous cow and dog guesses) but they all thought he was cute- especially when he turned around and they saw his tail.  He also had a bit of trouble with walking up and down steps and was a bit overwhelmed when there were lots of crowds of other kids.  But overall he did great and Mummy and Daddy got lots of good candy.  :)

The big excitement for the weekend was our weekly trip to OSV on Sunday.

A few weeks ago we had asked what the butchering schedule was and Sunday it was going to be a turkey.  I'll go into more detail about this later so you can skip it if you wish.

Other things that happened:

• Dave mentioned that he liked Bennett's costume
• As we were leaving the Farmhouse we overheard one interpreter (Rob?) asked Victoria, "was that the boy who dressed up as Doc?"  Which then led us to wonder, when she shared the picture with people, how did she preface it?  "You know that crazy family who comes here every week?"  What adjective did she use to describe us?
• I mentioned to Victoria that we were planning to do a Thanksgiving meal of just pies.  (For all extended family members reading this, we will be in NJ on the 28th, but doing Piesgiving [the name Chris and I have now come up with for a Thanksgiving of Pies] on the 30th.)  She said we should do pork and apple pie, to which I responded that I would be having my brother make that one.  And then she said I should make Marlborough Pudding.  I asked for the recipe.  She had Dave get the receipt for her and then I had her translate it for me.  At the end, she asked, "you have my contact information, right?"  Um, nope.  So now I have her email address for any culinary questions.
• We learned some interesting Turkey trivia.  For starters, there's no such thing as a "wild" turkey.  They were all hunted to the point of extinction.  So in the 50s or 60s domesticated turkeys were introduced back into the wild.  So any turkey you see is a descendent of those.  Also, historic breeds don't have much breast meat.  To get the large turkeys that you find at the grocery store, they have so much breast meat that they are unable to mate.  So all of those birds are the result of artificial insemination.
• After we finished up at the Farm we stopped at the blacksmith shop where Chris taught the smith about sap wood.  
• One of our final stops of the day was at the tinshop.  Phil invited Bennett back to get a better look at what he was doing, and then he had Bennett help pull the lever to crimp the edge of the tin for the lantern.

And that pretty much wraps up what happened at Sturbridge, except for the details on the turkey which are below.

But Bennett must have had a good time, because that evening he started playing "Sturbridge".  First he got in his "car" and drove there.  Then he shot a musket and baked a pie.

Daddy: What are you making?
Bennett:  Apple pie.  Not apple sauce.
Daddy: What did you put in it?
Bennett: Cookies

And speaking of pies and Marlborough Pudding, I decided to give it a whirl.  It needs some tweaking, but it was very yummy.  I later found the recipe on OSV's site, which includes some changes I was thinking were needed.  Chris even liked it so much that he said I should make it for real Thanksgiving in addition to Piesgiving.  One of the ingredients in Marlborough Pudding is applesauce, which is likely why Bennett mentioned it for the pie that he was making.

Now I'm going to warn Mel and other people who are squeamish that you may want to stop reading.   The pictures really aren't that bad, but there is a video that might freak you out.  We personally found it highly entertaining, but we're a little strange.
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THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!
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The first thing we saw as we approached the barnyard was Victoria walking up the road carrying the turkey.  She had the job of holding the turkey while Dave wielded the axe, so she ended up with some blood on her apron and dress while the turkey had flailed a bit. 

The turkey got to "take a bath".  About a minute in the warm water loosens up the pores which allows the feathers to come out more easily.  The water was too warm at first and would have started to cook the bird, so she removed some and added some cold water.  Eventually it was the right temperature.

Then came the task of removing the feathers.  They were separated into two baskets- wing feathers and all the rest.  The good wing feathers would be saved for quills and the other feathers would be washed and used for mattress stuffing, etc.

After all of the feathers had been removed, the turkey was brought inside to be gutted.  First they removed the feet, and then Victoria removed the organs.  As you can see, Bennett wasn't the least bit disturbed by any of this.

I don't have a picture of it, but when she was done Victoria had laid out all of the organs.  She also cut open the stomach so that we could see inside.  It was full of grass, rocks, and even a bug.

And remember that video I mentioned?  She had a little too much fun (especially considering she's a self proclaimed former PETA kid who cried when the turkey was killed) pulling on the tendon to make it wave/dance.  She also allowed the kids to do this if they wanted.  Bennett declined.

So that sums up our visit.  She kept hinting that we would be doing this to our own turkey.  I think I would be ok with some parts of the process but not others.  Next week they butcher a sheep!

The non-Halloween parts of our week

Most of last week was prep for Halloween, and as you may have seen, there was a separtate post about that.  But this is the rest of what happened last week.

One morning Bennett and I had a conversation in the car about whether or not Doc and Blue (and Lance and Henry) eat manglewurzels.  I was pretty impressed because he picked up this new word on the first try.

And continuing with Bennett in the car, here's a couple of pictures of him looking extremely grown up this week.  Maybe it's the longer hair and the sweaters, but he just looks so much older to us all of a sudden.

 

And then on Sunday we went to Secret Lake to celebrate the various fall birthdays.

The first thing Bennett did when we got there was climb on Rosalind.  (Named after the Rosalind mentioned in Romeo and Juliet.)

Then we went outside for a walk and Grandpa had Bennett climb a big rock.

We later went for another walk and encountered a tree that had been partially cut down by a beaver.  We tried to get Bennett to pretend to be a beaver, but he wasn't interested.

Here we are enjoying our Fall birthday pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  (There were 5 of us with birthdays in Sep-Nov.)

And that sums up the rest of our week.

Evolution of a Halloween Costume

This past week was pretty much all about getting ready for Halloween.

Here's what I was making.  Meet Doc (and his teammate, Blue).

Cutting out the fabric took longer than anticipated so at first I was feeling a little stressed about getting the costume done in time.  But once I got sewing, it went together pretty quickly.

SUNDAY
Realized that for the suggested layout of the pattern pieces, I couldn't have the fabric folded in half.  Ugh.  Cutting out fabric is tedious!

MONDAY
Finished cutting everything out, and after night one of sewing I had this:

TUESDAY
The next night, after we got home from work/school, I had Bennett try it on so that I could mark the hems.  He was so excited that there was a tail!

That same evening, while Chris worked on making dinner, I started working on the head covering.  It's a good thing that I did this while Bennett was awake, because I had to do a couple of adjustments to get it to fit right.  After he went to bed, I finished putting it together and got this:

At which point, I figured I might as well try putting some paint on it.

WEDNESDAY

The  next evening I had Bennett try the whole thing on, including the mittens and foot coverings.  He was excited to see that his head covering (hood? hat?) had "corns".

And then Daddy did a test fit of the yoke. (One must be on all fours like an ox for this part, right?)

After Bennett went to bed I stuffed the costume with bubble wrap and taped it to the drop cloth on my floor so that I could better visualize how it would stand on all fours so that I could get the rest of the paint done. And then every time I walked past my craft room I thought there was something in there. 

I also decided to give my old stage makeup a try.   It didn't go as well as I would have liked.  Maybe because it's about 17 years old?  I also didn't have the best of luck taking it off, so decided it wouldn't work for Bennett.  Instead I turned to Amazon and ordered some face paint.  Yay for Prime shipping!

THURSDAY
Not too much left to do.  I had decided that the mittens I made probably wouldn't be the best, so ran to Target in search of black mittens.  Easier said than done.  So many black mittens have other color on them as well.  I did find some "ski mittens" which have the long arm gaiters.  Tried them on Bennett and he declared them "too big".  Checked at home and found that we did in fact have a couple of other pairs that might work, but Bennett wasn't a big fan of either of them.  Maybe if he's cold enough he'll give in and wear them?

After Bennett went to bed I added some velcro to the hood to keep it on and Chris also did a little more work on the yoke.

FRIDAY
Face paint arrived!  I had it shipped to my work address and the box was sitting on my desk when I walked in.

And then after work/school, we went to Sturbridge for their "Treats & Tricks" event.  Unfortunately we weren't able to attend.  (Hurumph.)  It was a free eent this year and there were too many people trying to attend.  We had left work early to try to beat some of the traffic, but we ended up spending over an hour and a half to drive two miles.  We arrived right at 8 when the event ended.  What was frustrating about it was that the way the roads are in that area, there's really no way to give up and turn around- we were stuck.

SATURDAY
We decided that Bennett should go in costume for our weekly visit.

I'm inclined to say that most people didn't recognize him at first.  Maybe some did?  But after hearing that he was Doc, they then agreed that yes, he did look like Doc.  One of the interpreters was very excited to see that his back was in fact painted like a Randall Lineback. 

Here's mini Doc with the real Doc and Blue behind him.

We tried to get him to work at the cider mill, but he knew Henry was supposed to do it.  (You can see Henry waiting to get hooked up in the next picture.)  Daddy tried to show Bennett how it was done, but he wanted nothing to do with it.

We made our way down to the farm and Victoria loved the costume.  Bennett walked in first and I could tell that she was looking at him trying to figure it out.  And she did!  (Maybe it helped that last week I had mentioned he would be either Doc or Blue?)  But what was even better was when she pulled out her phone and handed it to me so that we could get a picture of him for her so that she could share it with Dave. 

If Dave had been working we likely would have asked him if it would be possible to get a picture of Bennett with the real Doc, but we didn't feel comfortable asking that of any of the others.  Instead we lifted Bennett over a fence to get pictures of him in a field.  We asked him to get down on all fours, but he didn't want to do that.

And here are a couple other pictures from our visit.

And where's the yoke, you ask?  Since it was made from a garden hose Chris tried painting it.  But the paint remained tacky, so we had to skip using it.  Maybe we'll have it ready for Halloween?

Games, apples and oxen

Evening activities this week consisted of puzzles and Memory.  He's getting really good at putting together this 100 piece puzzle.

Playing Memory with Bennett is still not much fun.  He doesn't like to only pick up two cards.  After one game, he put the cards out, but the silly boy lined up all the cards without mixing them beforehand, so most of the pairs were right next to each other.  He did much better than usual on that game.  :)

And here he is using his blocks to make pens for all of the animals.  (I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but all of the animals are named after the animals at Sturbridge.)

And unrelated to Bennett, But I participated swap with my knitting group.  This project took much longer than I would have liked, but I finally finished.  And I had to keep reminging Bennett that these were for Jesse's birthday, not for Bennett.

And Jesse's mum got some lavender sachets, which coincidentally is one of her favorite smells!

With the cooler weather we've been putting sweaters/sweatshirts on Bennett a bit more.  And he loves them!  Frequently if we don't pick one out for him in the morning he's opening his drawer to pull one out himself.


On Saturday we went apple picking  with Grandpa.

And then we went to pick a pumpkin.  Our rule is that you can have any pumpkin you want as long as you can carry it.  This one proved to be too much of a struggle.

And then there was some time on the playground.

On Sunday we went to OSV for their "Field to Table" event.  There were LOTS of oxen there competing in a couple of competitions.  There was one team that we mistook for Doc and Blue because they were the same breed, but as we got closer we realized they were different.  There were also a couple of small teams being worked by kids.  The mom mentioned that when Bennett's about 5 he might be an appropriate age to start working oxen.  Anyone have a farm nearby and have some oxen so we can try it out in a couple of years?

Bennett also helped harvest potatoes.  He was a little unsure of what to do at first, but once we explained and showed him what to do he loved picking up the potatoes and putting them in the bucket.  There were a couple of REALLY big ones!

He also helped to shell beans, but that wasn't nearly as exciting.

Further proof that the interpreters recognize us:

• When we walked over to a group of people by the oxen one of the interpreters (Rhys) had his back to us.  He turned around, recognized us, and then waved to us.
• We were talking to the stagecoach driver about the horses since one of the regular horses hadn't been there last week.  Turns out we had Worthy and Barney mixed up as to which was which.  But the driver commented that we looked familiar to him.  And then, since there was no one waiting to ride the stagecoach, he gave us a ride for free.
• I was down at the farmhouse while Chris had taken Bennett to the bathroom.  Victoria asked me if we had figured out which weeks we would be able to come for the fall butchering.  I also mentioned to her what Bennett's Halloween costume is going to be (it's OSV related) and she said that I would have to show her pictures.

Here's one final OSV picture- Bennett checking out the bin of apple pumice (the mashed apples) in the cider mill.

And unrelated to anything else this week, but on Sunday Chris was watching football on TV.  Bennett watched for a little while and said, "he pushed him".  Why yes, he did.

Trips, Presents, OSV, and the Beach

I had seen this cute monkey suitcase (we already have the matching backpack and lunchbox) but resisted getting it since we really didn't have a need for it.  And not that we really "needed" it, but we did go away this past weekend so it gave me the excuse to buy it.  

Bennett was super excited to roll it around- and later put it away in the closet.  The picture is blurry because he had to roll it all around the house.

Also fun things this week in the life of a 3 year old were putting on a fireman's hat to watch Curious George.

And even more birthday presents!

The first package was from someone in my mom's group.  We are a group of knitter/crafters.  (This is the same group who did the knitted monster swap.)  A few of us signed up to do a swap.  One of the few rules was that it had to contain a hand crafted item.

So Bennett received some felt cookies (in the photo below he's putting them in the oven).  The person who made them lives in England, so I tried telling Bennett that they weren't cookies, they were "biscuits". 

But that's not all.  She also made the cutest oven mitts.  And as Bennett said, "so I don't burn my hands".  That's one smart boy!

Also in the package were some British sweets and some Tottenham Hotspur items for Chris- tea towels and a rubber duck.  I tried suggesting that Bennett could have the duck to play with in the tub, but Chris was pretty insistent that he should be able to bring it in to work.

And I don't have pictures to share, but he also got a package from his great Aunt Tonda.  She sent him a sweater and some socks from Paris.  Oo la la!  They are still a smidge big, but better to be too big than too small.

For videos this week, we have Bennett doing a mix of Old MacDonald and Happy Birthday.

And since it was Fire Prevention Week, they learned about "Stop Drop and Roll" at school.  (You can see the Spurs tea towels in this video.)

 On Thursday Bennett had his second visit to the dentist.  Unlike when I went for his first visit, this time parents weren't allowed back during the cleaning.  (This is their normal policy.  I had been surprised that I was able to go last time.)  Since he did so well, Bennett chose FOUR pencils for his prize.  He wanted to bring them all in to school with him but Daddy suggested that he just bring one.  Then it broke- the eraser came out.  Daddy said he would fix it.  When Daddy picked him up from school, Bennett saw Daddy and the first thing he asked was, "Do you have my pencil?"



Our weekend was rather busy.  We started off at Sturbridge on Saturday morning and by the afternoon we were at the Cape.

We wanted to go to Sturbridge because there was a members only talk about the building of the Small House.  Bennett did relatively well, but it was too much standing around for him having to be quiet, so after a while I left Chris to continue listening and Bennett and I went down to the Freeman Farm.

The only picture we took on this visit. 
Advertising Christmas by Candlelight.

So we get down to the farm, check out the animals (notice that Henry isn't in the pen with the others), and go into the kitchen.  Pretty much as soon as we walk in, Victoria notices us and says to Bennett, "you're not dressed like a dinosaur".  (The past few weeks he's worn his dinosaur sweater.)  Then she says to me, "sorry, you're too early to sweep out the bake oven again.  Either that or I'm too late starting it."  If there was ever any remaining doubt, she definitely recognizes us.  We stayed in the kitchen for a while, listening, asking questions, etc.  Eventually Chris joined us and we went back outside to see the animals again.  Then I remembered that I had another question for Victoria.

There was a largish group in the kitchen, but I waited until things quieted down a bit and then I asked if she knew the butchering schedule yet.  Turns out she had just gotten that info!  However, she only had the info in an email.  So she led us into a back room, closed the door, and then sat down on the floor so that no one could see her through the window.  And she pulled out her phone to look up the info.  (Maybe this is the special treatment my mom claims that members get?  More likely just the special treatment for people who go 17 weeks in a row.)  We also chatted with her about how we think she's great, that we plan to do a private Dinner in a Country Village, and that we want to request her for it.  She's game.  I don't think she quite knows what she's getting herself into.  :)


After lunch we headed off to Cape Cod for a getaway with our "game night" group- a bunch of friends who used to work with Chris.

We all finally made it to the house mid to late afternoon.  We had an early dinner because one couple had to leave to get to the Red Sox game.  After dinner we talked and played games.  The kids mostly entertained themselves.  (And I have no idea why Bennett decided that he needed to open his suitcase and bring his toiletries downstairs, but then have his toothbrush upstairs.  Oh yeah, he's 3.  That's why he did it.)  Bennett was extremely excited to see the cot that was set up for his bed.  Just think, in a few years he'll probably grumble about the fact that he gets stuck on a cot.

When everyone was up in the morning we had a big breakfast- monkey bread, pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs...  But all Bennett wanted to know was when York would arrive because he knew that when York got there we would be able to go to the beach.  Bennett has wanted to go to the beach pretty much all summer!

When we finally made it to the beach, the adult males started building a sand sculpture.  Pete is really into this so he had all sorts of tools for the process.

The finished creation was a sandcastle, giraffe, and a dalek depending on what side you looked at.

Sand Castle

Giraffe

Dalek

And here it is in a panoramic/360 degree view.  It's a bit messed up, but still neat to see it this way.

The kids also had fun feeding the seagulls.

After the beach we went back to the house for a late lunch.  Bennett got put down for a nap and then we played more games.  After birthday cake and planning out when we would next be able to see each other for the next 6 months (Seriously. We scheduled times to get together in December, February, March and April), we headed home, arriving just in time for Bennett to go to bed.